Blekko and BrightEdge Partner on Fighting Brand-Based Search Spam

Blekko has partnered with SEO platform BrightEdge to fight search spam. Blekko is giving BrightEdge access to real-time link graph information, so companies can verify that their own links are legitimate as well as whether sites ranking ahead of them are using black hat or unethical standards to game search engine rank.

"This is an unprecedented partnership between such companies in an effort to break down the search black box so that brands can rise above all the clutter on the Web," a representative for Blekko tells WebProNews. "As you know, blekko’s mission has been to clean up the swampy Web since day one, and this partnership marks the next step."

Brands will be able to see how spam creators are manipulating paid links and using black hat strategie, taking advantage of brand searches.

"Next to consumers, the biggest losers in the current state of search are legitimate brands that are being outranked by spam," said Blekko CEO Rich Skrenta. "But too often legitimate companies encounter the unknown when trying to figure out how to get their information in front of consumers who are searching for it. This is a continued step in our efforts to bring transparency to the SEO process."

"This unprecedented partnership enables everyone from the CMO to the SEO manager to have confidence that the SEO being practiced around their brand delivers results in a responsible manner," added BrightEdge CEO Jim Yu. "Through this partnership, any brand on the web can instantly monitor its own and any competitor’s SEO practices on an almost real-time basis."

Blekko also lets users block sites from their search results themselves - a practice that Google has just recently adopted, and one that screams at content producers to maintain a high level of quality.

The fact is that now you not only have to worry about how Google is going to rank your content based on quality - which it is also greatly focused on - but putting out good enough content that people won't block your site from future searches.

Google's Personal Blocklist Chrome extension, which the company released before actually integrating this functionality into the search results themselves, is being installed 11,464 times a week itself. You have to wonder how frequently domains are being blocked by searchers.